Out Stealing Horses.
There are books that with a single sentence hook the reader, and erase any doubt whether the tale will be memorable. Out Stealing Horses is one of these books, and the sentence is, “We decide for ourselves when it will hurt.”
This work was absolutely lovely. Petterson writes simply but deeply, so this is a great option for people who want to read book on all of those “best books” list but don’t want to wade through dense prose.
Trond Sander is a 67-year-old man who has moved to the Norwegian countryside for quiet in his old age and realizes his neighbor was the brother of an friend Trond spent a summer with when he was 15. This literal closeness to his past sends Trond remembering in detail the last summer he spent with his father. It’s the set-up for a classic coming of age novel, and yet, Out Stealing Horses does not fall to cliches. When Trond’s father speaks to him about pain being determined by oneself while Trond is pulling nettles on page 27, it’s clear this novel is slowly building toward an ending of some weight.
The translation is also to be commended. Never once did I feel as though there was a layer of Petterson’s Norwegian prose which was not being fully captured. I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up another one of his novels, and look forward to rereading this one on a quiet winter day.
General Announcement
As Sonika needs some time to herself and I’m holding down the fort by myself, I wanted to put it out into the universe that we’d love guest posts here. You know, in case anyone else still reads books* and has time to mess around while they’re supposed to be working. Just let me know at the convenient email address of goudakat at gmail, and I’ll hook you up.
**Books read on a Kindle need not apply. KTHXBAI
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Wow, I loved The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I simply could not put it down, and did not want it to end, which explains why I shelled out hard-earned dollars (well, earned dollars) for the hardback edition of the next book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which I’m currently reading.
There are really few people I can think of who wouldn’t like this book. A Swedish journalist is convicted of libel and has to step back from his magazine to ensure its survival, so he accepts a job from an old rich businessman to solve the disappearance/find the murderer of his niece who disappeared 40 years ago. The journalist recruits a hell of a character, a female private investigator, to help him, and the two of them get caught up in a murder mystery. I will say there are definitely some uncomfortable scenes and themes, including some that might be triggering, but overall, this book rocked my socks off, and I can only hope the next two are as good.
Background: Steig Larsson turned in three manuscripts before he died. This one is the first novel, Fire is the second, and the third will be released in May 2010.
Her Fearful Symmetry.
The theme de jour is obsession, and man, do Niffenegger’s characters nail it with a vengence. There are two sets of twins- Edie and Elspeth, and Edie’s twin daughters, Julia and Valentina. Edie and Elspeth have had a falling out over a mystery event that gradually becomes clearer, and have not seen each other for twenty years. Still, when Elspeth dies of cancer in the beginning of the book, she leaves her flat to Edie’s daughters provided they come to live in London for a year, and that their parents do not come inside the flat. Elspeth’s place is along the border of Highgate Cemetary, which her younger lover, Robert, is writing his dissertation on, and so the scene is set for relationships that refuse to be severed at whatever cost- especially when Robert falls for Valentina while Elspeth’s ghost watches. Confused about the point? Well, read here, as I don’t want to get into all the details, especially as it’s nearly impossible to not give away the ending.
And maybe the confusing nature of even trying to describe the book is telling: the book is trying to do too much at once and convey too many messages. The Time Traveler’s Wife was meant to be about the triumph of love over time (whether you thought it accomplished this or not), and could be summed up as so. Exactly what Her Fearful Symmetry is meant to be about is less clear. It might be about love and death, or about being careful what you wish for, or how “We are never deceived; we only deceive ourselves” (Goethe), or the question of whether obsession still qualifies as love (i.e. is a stalker’s love real?). And somehow it manages to be about all of these things, but none of them well.
Reading the book itself became somewhat of an obsession for me, as I couldn’t put it down and finished in the day I bought it, and yet, the ending unsettled me. It wasn’t satisfactory, but the larger issue was that I didn’t know how to feel because none of the characters- with the exception of OCD Martin, the upstairs neighbor- is more than two-dimensional. The best part of the book really is Highgate Cemetary, which becomes it’s own character, and is endlessly fascinating. Or maybe I just like cemetaries and books about dead bodies.
Still, despite the mixed review, I’d be really interested to hear what other people got out of the book- there’s a lot to discuss here, and I’ve spent a week wondering if I missed exactly what made this book so awesome in other people’s minds. And this is why I’m mailing my copy to Sonika- just so I can be told if I’ve completely lost my right to call myself an English major or if I’ve still got it. At least I got that symmetry sounds like “cemetary.”
My French Life
I received My French Life as a birthday present from Sonika’s mom when I was in New England over Labor Day, and what a gift it is. How I love this book, and needed it without even realizing it. It was perfect to curl up with on a fall night and sink into the gorgeous photographs by Carla Coulson.
As for the text by Archer, it was not quite what I expected, as the author was a bit too much a part of the story. Rather than allowing the reader to see France through her eyes, Archer spends a lot of time telling rather than showing, which becomes a bit distracting. I get the feeling she wanted to do something a bit Under the Tuscan Sun, but without the length, and instead it comes across as a bit Carrie Bradshaw without the charm.
The photographs are the true star of this book, and so, so worth it. I’ll use this book for a coffee table book for years in the future, and reach for it whenever I need to be reminded of the beauty of France- and maybe with the help of Carla Coulson, I’ll persuade my husband that it’s worth the trip.
Many, many thanks to Sonika’s dear mama for this book.
NP
NP by Banana Yoshimoto was a bit odd. I heard of her as compared to Murakami, and found one her books for $2, so I thought I’d give it a shot. NP follows four main characters, three of whom are related, and two of whom are involved in an incestuous relationship and constantly tempted to make a suicide pact with each other. While the book isn’t quite as maudlin as this sounds, neither are the characters particularly deep or developed.
The book feels as though it takes place in a bubble separate from any reality of a day to day life characters normally experience, and while there is a plot, none of it feels consequential. I could see a few similarities to Murakami in style, but while his books always have underlying themes, NP’s theme seemed solely to consist of a “Will they or won’t they?” message, which I didn’t find of that much interest, especially given the lack of consequences. You’re preggers with your brother’s baby? Oh, just get married to someone else. You’re haunted by the suicide of your father? Say you’re in love with your sister, and feel judged even though there’s no evidence anywhere that you were judged, even by your other sister.
And through it all, I was kind of ‘meh’ about the whole thing, because after all, if the characters barely react to their own lives, why should I bother?
P.S. I found myself agreeing with this commenter on Amazon, but I don’t know if I’m really interested enough to try reading Yoshimoto’s Kitchen.
The Monster of Florence.
The Monster of Florence was a suitably creepy, grisly serial killer book- based on real life!- that proved to be a rather fast, enthralling read. I took it on two plane flights, and it was an improvement over flying while reading Home, the book that made me cry for the last 50 pages, which caused the guy next to me to look a bit alarmed. So this time around I was just that disturbing person who is reading about dead bodies. My parents will be so proud.
The book is interesting in that it’s told in two halves: the first by the Italian journalist who covered the serial murders of summertime lovers caught in the act in their cars (apparently, this is what you do in Italy because everyone lives with their parents until they get married). Mario Spezi is often one of the first on the crime scenes, which are rather closed off to journalists. He follows the Monster for years as the police arrest and imprison one wrong person after another, each of whom is proved innocent after another attack while the accused is in prison and therefore incapable of being the serial killer. The second half of the book is by Douglas Preston, an American author, who planned to set one of his novels in Florence. However, once he’s moved his family to Italy, he is told the story of a pair of murders that took place in his front yard, and sidetracked by the Monster. Eventually, he meets up with Spezi and the two work to uncover the identity of the serial killer, an independent investigation that seems a bit Hardy Boy-esque, except for the fact that Spezi ticks off the cops and is himself accused of being the killer. Good times.
The writing of this book is fairly brisk, and the murders themselves are fascinating (the Monster inspired the creation of Hannibal Lector), although I do wish fewer of the chapter ended with “Name was the Monster of Florence” only to be followed by a chapter depicting another pair of murders that ended with “Name could not have been the Monster.” There wasn’t a better “dun dun da” line to close some of these chapters with? Also frustrating, though understandable, is that there’s no conclusion to the story. The Monster of Florence has never been caught, so the book ends only with the authors’ hunch of who he may be. This isn’t the most awesome serial killer book ever, but it gets the job done fairly well, and I’d give it 3 1/2 to 4 stars.
Fascinating, chilling stuff though. For a list of the dead, see here and a bit more about the book here. As an interesting sidenote, the same somewhat incompetent Italian prosecutor worked on the recent Meredith Kercher murder trial: “The lead prosecutor in the case, Giuliano Mignini, has been the subject of abuse-of-office charges that have been investigated at the same time as the Knox and Sollecito trial. These charges stem from “unauthorized wiretapping of journalists and others” conducted by Mignini and his law enforcement colleagues during the investigation of the Monster of Florence serial killings in the 1970s and 1980s.” It’s good to know ours isn’t the only justice system that could stand some improvement among first world nations. Or maybe it’s just sad. Either way, I won’t be having sex in a car if I visit Italy, and I probably won’t investigate any murders there.
I suppose that just leaves “Gouda.”
I’mma have to bow out of trying to run two blogs, given my great track record for updates over here. *sigh* I really love the idea of collaborative blogging. And books. And collaborative blogging about books, but I barely have time to think these days and it doesn’t feel right to the “spirit” of whatever this blogging enterprise was supposed to be to keep doing book dumps over here.
So, I’m going to do book dumps over at my own blog. And feel like a chump. A chump who reads a lot.
The Monsters: Mary Shelley & The Curse of Frankenstein
The Monsters rocked my socks off about a month ago. I loaned it to Sonika when I visited her, so sadly I can’t give any quotes. Well-researched and equally well-written, The Monsters is a captivating read for anyone interested in Frankenstein, Mary and Percy Shelley, or Lord Byron. If you weren’t interested in these topics before, you might be by a quarter of the way through the book. Oh, and if you’re interested in people who are in love with their half-siblings, this book could be for you. Who knew those Victorians were so explicit in their letters to family members?
Home.
Book blog, we will not let you die! We have in fact been reading, and some awesome books at that, one of which was Marilynne Robinson’s Home. Prior to writing Home, Robinson had written Housekeeping way back when and then about five years ago written Gilead, which won the Pulitizer and alone qualified her to be one of my most favorite writers. Gilead is about Reverend John Ames, and Home is a companion novel rather than a sequel, as it is about Ames’ best friend, Reverend Robert Boughton.
I finished Home over the past weekend (during my second vacation of this month, the first of which was to see Sonika), and freely admit that I cried during the whole last part of the book and feverishly hoped that the guy next to me didn’t think I was a crazy lady.
Home focuses on the Reverend and his youngest two children, Glory and Jack. The Reverend is dying, and Jack, the prodigal son, comes home in an effort to mend fences. It is a painful reunion for all three of them, and one laced with as much pain and regret as relief- and the peace that Jack and the Reverend so long for is always just out of reach.
The themes of faith, family and forgiveness are not only themes in this work but active topics of discussion among Glory, Jack and the Reverend. At one point, Glory thinks to herself:
There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding. … If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.
Robinson is a fantastic writer, but demands thought, consideration, and most of all attention. Her style reminds me of Woolf, in the way that the reader needs to surrender to the book and let the words flow over them. Robinson requires you to be opening to receiving her novels, which given that the past two have dealt with faith, seems somewhat fitting. I loved Gilead, and loved Home just as much, and there are few people I can think of who I wouldn’t confidently hand these books to and say, ‘Go, and read them both immediately.’
